Fintech app developers often face significant hurdles when integrating repayment, balance transfer, and bill pay functionality into their platforms. The traditional approach involves dealing with brittle screen-scraping APIs or processing physical checks and paperwork, which can be a major blocker, especially for smaller fintech teams. To address this challenge, three friends and entrepreneurs, Jose Bethancourt, Marco del Carmen, and Mit Shah, have launched Method, a platform that powers debt and debt repayment features in fintech applications.

The idea for Method was born out of the founders' personal experience with the limitations of existing account connectivity systems while building their previous startup, GradJoy, a Y Combinator-backed company that aimed to simplify student loan management. By leveraging consumer credit access protections enacted into law as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, Method can aggregate a person's debts and execute balance transfers, bill pay, and payoffs on their behalf. This is achieved by tapping into identity verification data from credit bureaus and telecom companies and combining it with data from core banking systems.

Fintech developers can easily integrate Method's technology into their apps using the company's API, requiring only a user's phone number to get started. Since emerging from stealth in 2021, Method has already supported over 30 million account connections for 4 million users, facilitating over $500 million in liability repayments to date.

One of the concerns with Method's solution is the handling of sensitive user data. However, Shah claims that Method collects only "minimum user information" and doesn't sell data to third parties. The company is also planning to launch a portal where users will be able to log in to manage the data they've shared with Method customers, addressing potential privacy concerns.

Method competes with established vendors like Plaid, MX, Spinwheel, and Dwolla, but differentiates itself by not requiring users to enter their financial account credentials, which can be a point of friction. Instead, Method's solution enables consumers to pay their liabilities using Method's payment rail, without needing to re-authenticate multiple times for different accounts.

Recently, Method added support for credit cards, underpinning Bilt's credit card linking tool, which allows Bilt customers to connect their cards to receive points on eligible purchases. The company plans to deepen its banking relationships and roll out credit card network integrations for retail and travel customers in the near future.

Method's solution also has the potential to revolutionize the checkout experience for merchants. By presenting guests and repeat shoppers with their current credit card wallet, including each active credit card they hold, with just the entry of their name and phone number, merchants can gain greater influence over the checkout experience and better understand customers across channels and cards with full wallet visibility.

To fund its product growth, the 35-employee, Austin-based Method raised a $41.5 million Series B round led by Emergence Capital, with participation from Avra Capital, Samsung Next, Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and Ardent. This new funding brings the company's total raised to approximately $60 million, further solidifying its position as a game-changer in the fintech industry.

In conclusion, Method's innovative solution has the potential to simplify debt repayment and balance transfer features for fintech apps, providing a seamless user experience and increasing conversion rates for lenders and fintechs. As the company continues to grow and expand its services, it will be interesting to see the broader implications of its technology on the fintech industry as a whole.